One Lucky Winner
by Arkytal
Summary: The Lucky Star multiverse is messed up, and the Alpha timeline (read: manga/anime) cast are able to watch what the multiverse does to fix itself. Relies heavily on my other stories, also not for the faint of heart.


One Lucky Winner

I

The Hall

The four girls woke with a sudden start. They were not where they had fallen asleep, that much was for sure. They were laying in bed, next to each other, Konata to the left, then Kagami, Tsukasa, and finally Miyuki on the far right, but they were fully clothed in their school uniforms.

The room had no ceiling, and far, far above them, light shone down on them, along with the noise of a million voices chattering slowly coming into tune. It was unnoticeable at first, but gradually increased in volume. The decor was similar to all of their rooms', like it was a generalized aggregate of the four's tastes, taken together and broken down into an average, completely normal style.

Konata was the first to sit up straight, looking at her friends with more than a slight suspicious look gracing her childish face.

"Why are you in my bed, Kagamin~? I don't mind, but really, you should know to knock, heh." Kagami grumbled, not quite awake, before realizing that she shouldn't have been in bed with Konata, nor had she remembered doing any such thing. She bolted upright, her hair already in their black hair ribbons.

"Where are we?!" Her shrill tone woke up her sister and Miyuki more than they had been before, and in short order, everyone was up and sitting in a diamond shape on the floor, taking in their peculiar surroundings.

"Are we dreaming?" Tsukasa, ever the dreamer, wondered aloud. Konata hummed at the question, then reached over and grabbed Kagami's chest with both hands, giving it a good squeeze.

SMACK.

As she rubbed her shining red cheek, Konata mumbled her reply, "Nope, I'm pretty sure we aren't dreaming. Well, it's not my dream, sadly." Kagami was just as red in the face at this comment, and looked like she was going to say something, but ultimately said nothing.

"That door has a lock on it." Miyuki spoke finally, her eyes fixated on the door to the room they were within, a large keypad lock with more keys than you'd think a lock would have, all of which were blank, with no lettering at all. The door had stickers of cartoon bunnies all around it, with eggs of various colors making a border to the stickered chaos, aside from the lock breaking the appearance.

Kagami stood up and walked the three paces to the door, and tried the knob. All of the buttons flashed red, and beeped twice. The door didn't budge.

The voices around them suddenly increased in volume, as if they were coming closer, but were still too distant to understand any single thing coming from them.

"Well, what are we going to do but wait around for whatever comes next?" Kagami had her hand still on the door knob, her head turned back to the others. Konata was laying back with her legs crossed. Tsukasa had found some paper cranes in a footlocker and was entertaining herself with them. Miyuki was just looking overhead with a thoughtful expression gracing her soft features.

Kagami sighed, then sat back down in her spot, grabbing a pencil and piece of paper. They were in some kind of weird place, she mine as well note down what made it so out of place.

The inhabitants of the Alpha timeline were now here, in the Halls. What an honor, to have the origin variation, here, where the order of succession was to be determined! Truly an honor, indeed. Would they approve of the methodology used to decide on whose timeline survives the rigors of the multiverse? Probably not, but as it happens, few people rarely do. That wasn't important, what was important, was the knowledge that another version of their life's story gets to live on past the demise of a single universe.

I was under strict orders to not allow the Alphas to mingle with each other, and to disallow any of the many, many, many, _many _versions of them to meet the Alphas before they were introduced to the event at hand.

There was three rooms containing Alphas; the first held the four girls who, in most universes in which they were not "real" were the main characters of a comic. The second held their younger friends, whose importance was not as key to the process, but still important in their own way. The third held, well, everyone else of note from their timeline. Mostly their relatives, both deceased and not. Here in the Halls, where time didn't really 'exist' in proper coherence to the chronological order of the universe, everyone was considered to be both alive and dead, for this could be happening at the beginning of all universes, or after the last universe in the multiverse had breathed its' last. No one really knew for sure.

One thing I did know for sure, however, was that some of their variants were being quite steadfast in meeting their respective Alphas.

I was leaning against the door barring entry to the main Alphas, faced with four stocky figured covered in heavy winter clothing and toting automatic rifles.

"C'mon, let's meet them, how different are they from us? We want to know already, damnit!" The lead girl, whose dirty violet hair could be seen through the folds of clothing, had her rifle pressed against my chest, perhaps thinking that it would be possible to harm me here, of all places.

I sighed. Trillions of variants of a timeline can be in one place and everyone is fine with each other, but as soon as you drop the Alphas into a locked room just beyond everyone's reach, everyone wants to know just how close they are to the Alpha timeline, respectively, and it becomes an absolute madhouse.

"Well, miss, if you've been walking around and seeing how many version of yourself aren't dressed like hobos and packing heat, your answer may come quite easily. The rule of thumb being that most variants of a timeline will result in people who bear some of the same traits as their Alpha. You'll be able to meet them soon enough, so please move along, lest you be disqualified from participating before we can even begin."

All four of them flinched backwards at the sound of this implied threat, and she moodily grumbled, shrugged, and turned away with her cronies to dissolve into the mess of variants all interacting politely enough in the Halls.

I sighed again. I looked down the rows of stalls set up, and saw one figure in particular moving towards me slowly, leaving a thin scratch line in the fine floor of the Hall.

"It's never the easy ones, is it..."

We had all fallen asleep at some point, but I was the first one to wake back up. The voices hadn't stopped; if anything, they were a bit louder than they were before. Kagamin~ was being cute without meaning to, having fallen asleep on her side, almost curled up into a ball. Tsukasa had climbed back into the bed at some point, and was still snoozing like the rock she became when dreaming. Miyuki was sitting in the corner next to the door, her legs outstretched, and her back against the wall. Her chest rose and fell slowly as she slept, giving no indication of worry about our current situation.

I stood up, cracking my back several times, and shook my hair out of my face with a sigh.

I tried the door for myself, getting the same result, but the beeps were quieter, which piqued my curiosity. I attempted to turn the knob once again, and there were no beeps to be had. I turned again, and to my surprise, I heard the "klik!" of the door opening. I froze, breath caught in my throat, not sure of whether to try to open the door or not.

No pain, no gain, I decided, and slowly, ever so cruelly slowly, I pulled the door open an inch, just enough to look through the crack with one eye.

There was a vivid orange eye looking right back at me, which surprised me, causing me to yelp and fall backwards, sending the door open all the way and waking up my friends.

I looked up at the orange eye, and the person whose eye it belonged to, who was now standing in the doorway, looking in on us. He tapped the door's lock and grumbled.

"This damn lock is always malfunctioning. Oh well, it was time I showed you around anyways." The tall, almost impossibly lanky man turned to me and smiled.

"Sorry for scaring you, I was just as surprised as you were when the door popped open. My name is Meda. All of you are probably brimming with answers that I'd be more than happy to answer." He held out his hand to help me up, and I took it after a moment of hesitation, before turning around to see everyone else wide awake after the moment of surprise.

"Hello to each of you girls as well, I'm honored to meet an Alpha in person, of course." Alpha? What the hell is an Alpha, and why are we whatever an Alpha is? We're not alpha males, if that's what he means...or is this guy just a pervert?

"Meda" stepped into the center of the room and looked to each of us, before sighing.

"I'm sorry, that must sound like absolute nonsense to all of you. Okay, first off, do any of you know what "the multiverse" is?" Kagami raised her hand suddenly, like we were in school, then blushed, lowered her hand, and started talking.

"Isn't the multiverse the theory that anything that is thought to exist does, in one version of the universe or another? But what does that have to do with where we are?" Meda smiled and nodded.

"You're completely correct. That has everything to do with where you are, actually." He began his next sentence with air quotes. " 'Here' is a place in the multiverse that isn't specifically within any one universe. The short and sweet version of why you've woken up in a strange place is that in the universe you are from is the "Alpha timeline" for 'your story', that is to say, the lives of you and your friends and relatives. There exist countless other timelines in which the same set of people exist, but are not the Alpha timeline, which means that the stability of their respective universes' is not guaranteed, and often times, the end of these universes comes quite prematurely, sometimes within the lifespans of these variants that I've mentioned. In addition, this counts the universes in which the variants of each person are purely fictional, due to the way the multiverse dynamically creates universes in order to satisfy its' own rules. The multiverse contains a set number of universes that are 'stable' so to speak, and while that number is always increasing as the number of universes increases at a highly exponential rate, it always remains a small percentage of the total number of universes in existence."

It was silent for a minute as we digested this information, each at our own rate. Miyuki just nodded and looked at us like that was to be expected. I was initially shocked that this guy was telling us we were outside of the universe, but then I wondered, "How many fictional characters am I going to meet today?", and the mere thought of me meeting Haruhi, or Kyon, or Char, or anyone else super cool and badass far outweighed the thought that we were having one pulled over on us, because there was something crazy going on when I woke up with my friends and don't know how I got there.

Tsukasa just looked like her head hurt.

Kagami was chewing on her lip, a sympathetic look on her face; she was looking at her sister.

Meda started talking again, and we all turned back to him. He was seriously tall, and seriously skinny. He was like a spider and a skeleton were mashed together and put in a track suit. You could see his ribs through the jacket if you looked carefully. He should get a bit more to eat.

"So you four, and your friends and family, are from the Alpha timeline of your story. The multiverse sometimes has hiccups, however, that cannot correct themselves easily, however, and that is where we are now, to deal with one such hiccup. The hiccup in question, is that it has somehow overwritten the status of being the Alpha timeline from your own timeline, and it needs to have a new variant of that timeline be selected to be the new Alpha timeline. We can't simply go into the workings and change it back to an Alpha, for there are safeguards in place to ensure that there cannot be a universe that is an Alpha timeline for multiple 'stories'. If this occurrence had been caught in the _very same microsecond _in which the data was changed, we may have been able to change it back before the update flashed across every universe, and your own timeline was assigned to be the Alpha timeline for another story. Which is unfortunate, it doesn't come with a negative in the sense that your universe will suddenly end or anything. That timeline is still completely stable, due to still being an Alpha timeline for _something_, but it is no longer the "_Lucky Star"_ Alpha timeline. As it stands right now, there is _no _"_Lucky Star"_ Alpha timeline. This leaves trillions of variants of your existence in jeopardy, and that is what we have gathered all of them into this Hall now to decide.

They will all have to prove themselves against one another, and the one who survives all the trials and tests, will have their timeline become the Alpha timeline for _"Lucky Star"_, and all future variants will then have that timeline as the basis for them. Yes, it may not make much sense, but the multiverse is a tricky thing to coordinate without ending all of existence." He made an expression that said "What can you do about it?", then opened the door to the outside, wherever that led to.

"None of this will really mean anything to any of you until you come out and meet, well, you. All of you from every plane of existence. Come, come, no one can hurt you, you still are from a stable timeline, so the nasty versions of yourselves wouldn't dare to hurt you, lest they be removed from existence entirely."

I followed immediately, seeing Kagami whispering to Tsukasa as they rather hesitantly moved towards me. Miyuki brought up the rear, beaming brightly. She probably even understands all this crazy science stuff. I just want to see how cool I am in other universes!

Meda closed the door behind us, and we were now standing in what looked like the most massive convention hall anyone has ever seen. The only hair colors floating about were pink, blue, icy green, salmon, blonde, black, and lilac.

It was _us. _Everywhere, there were groups of twos, threes, and fours, but it was all _us_. I walked by with powered armor and some type of gun hanging off the hip. She winked at me and I waved back, but she was soon out of my sight, replaced by dozens of other _us_'es. Kagami had another Kagami walk up to her, with a nasty scar stretching from her left eye down to her right cheek, push her a little, laugh, then walk off. As she did, she started pushing another me who was in a wheelchair, and looked very unhappy to have her pushed by that Kagami.

Tsukasa started up an animated conversation with another Tsukasa who was carrying a giant wrench and was covered in grease stains, while Meda moved over to someone who didn't look as familiar as she should have at first.

After a few seconds I realized it was Yutaka's friend Iwasaki-san, in some rad futuristic armor with a purple bandanna covering the lower half of her friend. They were having a whispered conversation, but I couldn't care less, because everywhere I looked was just _us_. It was insane. Everything you'd imagine yourself being and looking like, all in one place at the same time.

Meda swore loudly, before walking up to us and looking behind us. He said to himself, "Here they come again..." before I turned around to see who he meant.

Even in the masses of _us_, they stood out like a sore thumb. The four moved like hunters do, trying to stay out of sight in the crowd, but having grown up in the city, that just shows me right where you are.

Tsukasa's friend saw them, drew a surprised breath, said good-bye to Tsukasa, and left in a hurry.

They drew near and I saw the guns they were cradling, and I felt pretty unsafe by that point. Meda stood in front of them and opened his arms slightly, as if to protect us from..._us_. Wow, that's weird.

"You can see them now. Are you happy with that, girls? You've seen that you're nothing alike, you should head back to your area now."

The gunshot that cracked right by our heads answered the question, and sent the four of us to the ground in fear. I could see Meda's black shoes from where I was on the ground, and hear his voice when my hearing returned after the sudden concussion blast of the gun.

"...urt them. You shouldn't scare them like this. If you keep on doing things like this I'll have to report you to my superiors."

I rolled over just enough to be able to look up at them, and more particularly, the shortest one, obviously me in one form or another, even if you couldn't tell through the thick clothes.

She pulled down her hood, revealing her face, and dark indigo hair not too different from my own. She looked like a serial killer you'd see on TV, in the flesh. Just what did we hunt in their universe...? She even spoke, and her voice was hard, something I didn't think my voice could be.

"You better shut up, Meda, or we'll kill you here and leave. It doesn't matter if we win our place, we don't want our timeline to be the Alpha timeline. No one else we talked to wants us to win either, so frankly, I don't give a shit if we're scaring them. They've lived sheltered little lives that don't matter, so excuse me if they're _scared. _You open your mouth, and I'll fill it with lead."

He must have opened his mouth, because she brought her rifle to bear, and I squeezed my eyes closed, not wanting to see what happened next. The sounds of four guns, not just one, battered my eardrums into submission, and I waited for the sounds to go away.

Something hit me gently from the side, which made me open my eyes early. It was Meda's twitching leg...as sparks jumped all over his body? I scooched over, and looked at his "corpse" the flesh burned off his face...revealing wires?

Meda had been a robot. It's just getting weirder and weirder...when do I get to meet Haruhi? She'd be less scary than _us _right about now.

_Us _who had "killed" Meda grabbed each of us and pulled us to our feet. I was pretty freaking scared right about now, but we couldn't do anything about it. I thought we were next, before I leaned my head against my own and heard her whispering to me.

"This place isn't everything it seems. Those Meda's and Iki's aren't to be trusted, we don't know what their true motives are. We're pretty sure this place isn't going to decide the new Alpha timeline through diplomatic means, if you know what we mean. We'll try to contact you again if we learn anything new. Oh, and _do not make contact with 6B Tsukasa_."

In one movement, all four of us were thrown to the floor, and they turned and walked off as we picked ourselves up. One look at my friends told me the approximate same message had been relayed to them. Tsukasa looked especially distraught about it, and Kagami was comforting her about it.

"Sorry about that!" Meda's voice was heard behind us, and he came up and tapped my shoulder, and turned to his body on the floor. He spit on the corpse of...himself, and it began dissolving into goop and melted into the floor, leaving not so much as a dent on the surface.

"Some variants of you are...aggressive, if you can believe it. And those four aren't even the biggest offenders! There's currently a ruckus going on a few sections over, one area devoted to one instance of your story has been completely ripped apart, and they're refusing to let anyone through into their section, forcing all traffic to be rerouted around it. A shame really, but it's understandable, that particular variant of your timeline is paranoid that anything foreign will murder them brutally. So, not unexplainable. Just a product of their environment, you see." Such hard fact, delivered with a kind smile. Kind, for a robot, anyways.

I'd almost think that portion was extraordinary, but it pales in comparison to just...all of this.

"Can we go around and meet other versions of us?" Meda turned to Kagami, who had her brow furrowed, and was looking around at everyone, her eyes lingering for an extra moment in the direction that "we" had departed after that shootout of sorts...this is going to get so, _so_ confusing, isn't it? I have a feeling it is...

"Of course, if you need me, just call my name and I'll come find you." He tilted his head, and went back to the Iwasaki-san he had been conversing with before his untimely demise. I feel like that just happens around here.

I looked to my friends, who looked at each other, then me.

"Well, don't you want to know more about..._us_?" My question didn't seem to bode well for Kagami, who just sighed and started walking in a random direction, and without much reason to go in any other direction, we followed her into the sea of _us_.

**A/N: I split the first chapter into two parts because it was getting up there in length. It's going to get a lot more confusing from here on out.**


End file.
